


Courage

by rahelawriter



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Adaptation, Canon Compliant, Crying, First Meetings, Flashback, Friendship, Gen, Hugging, Mid-Canon, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV First Person, Post-Kingdom Hearts 3D, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-15 23:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17538482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rahelawriter/pseuds/rahelawriter
Summary: You used to be fearless. You would have given your life to save Belle. Don’t you know what that meant to us? [To him, the terrified child who had just lost everything? His home, his family, his weapon, and his friends?] You gave us all courage! [Gave him the courage he needed to keep going.]





	Courage

**Author's Note:**

> Not enough people appreciate the Disney characters, man. Who knows what would have happened to Sora in Hollow Bastion without Beast.

_“No vessel, no help from the Heartless... So tell me, how’d you get here?”_

_“I simply believed. Nothing more to it. When our world fell into darkness, Belle was taken from me. I vowed I would find her again no matter what the cost. I believed I would find her. So, here I am. She must be here. I will have her back!”_

_The boy in yellow and blue standing on the platform above me sneered, and raised his sword in confident challenge. “Take her, if you can!”_

_This boy, so young, but so readily an accomplice to the evil faerie’s schemes. All too well did I know the eventual consequences of that sort of cruel thoughtlessness. If he would keep Belle from me, I would spare him no sympathy. So I roared, and lunged…_

_… But, for all my determination, all my rage, all my power, and all my love… It wasn’t enough. I was simply too tired from my long journey through the darkness, that my movements were sluggish. The boy was easily able to dodge the swing of my paw. And then, he struck back with superhuman speed, slashing me across the chest, the pain stealing away what strength I had left. My vision fogged, and I collapsed…_

 

_“Stop!”_

 

_Another boy, this one smaller and dressed in red, stepped between us before anything else could happen. Immediately my attacker forgot all about me and shifted all focus to him and his two companions, and crumpled on the ground as I was, I listened to them argue._

_The two were childhood rivals that had a falling out, it seemed. Then the taller boy, Riku, reached out his hand and the other boy’s weapon began to shake in his grasp, as if it were being pulled away from him by an invisible force. He struggled to hold onto it until it vanished in a flash of light, and reappeared in Riku’s hand, to the shock of all present._

_Riku admired this stolen weapon, the ‘keyblade,’ he called it, with a look of smug vindication. He went on with some nonsense about Maleficent and a secret door and changing the world. The boy in red protested, rightly confused and distraught, but he was dismissed with a wooden sword being tossed at him and landing at his feet. Utterly lost for words, he could do nothing but collapse onto his hands and knees, as if all the weight in the world were suddenly dropped upon his shoulders._

_And as Riku walked away, so too followed the other boy’s companions. The duck spoke of their mission, while the dog recognized the orders of their King to ‘follow the key.’ So, despite their obvious reluctance and guilt, they departed._

_“Sora, sorry…”_

_The drama playing out in front of me had ended now. The only sounds hanging in the air now were the waterfalls, and the boy’s sobbing. This child, Sora, he had fought his way here to save someone, just as I had. But in an instant, all his strength had been snatched away from him._

_He was on his own, like me…_

_But I could not allow myself to give into such hopelessness. If he chose to give up, I would not begrudge him that; he did not possess the same raw strength as me. But I got back on my feet, growling through the pain, taking one labored step at a time, because I had no such excuse. Nothing was stopping me, because I would not allow anything to stop me. Nothing would keep me from Belle…_

_One slow step at a time, I walked past the boy. But soon my body grew too heavy, my knees buckled, and I fell again. The ache in my chest was near-suffocating, and I snarled at my own weakness._

_Footsteps approached me from behind. Sora stood at my side, eyes swollen from crying, but full of worry. His fear was not for my beastly form, but for the bleeding gash staining my fur a deep red. “Hey, don’t move. You’re hurt.”_

_Unselfish of him, to worry about me after what just happened to him. I looked at him, trying to understand. I gasped between each breath, “Why… Why did you… you come here? I came to fight for Belle.” Focusing my eyes to straight ahead of me, upon the way forward as I once again pushed myself back up and staggered onwards past him._

_“And though I am on my own, I will fight. I won’t leave without her. That’s why I’m here.”_

_I walked forwards, and then paused, to see if Sora would follow. A short silence, but then I heard the sound of wood against stone; he had picked up the toy sword that Riku had thrown to him in mockery. A moment later he stood beside me, looking upwards, still shaken, but now full of resolve._

_“Me too,” Sora said. “I’m not gonna give up now. I came here to find someone very important to me.”_

_So he would fight too, then. Good._

_“But first things first, I need to heal you, uh…?” Sora looked up at me, silently asking my name._

_“Call me ‘Beast,’” I said, simply. It was the only name that suited me in this form._

_“Um, okay. My name’s Sora,” he introduced himself properly, even though I’d already heard his name. Lifting his wooden sword aloft, he said, “I dunno if this will work without the Keyblade, but: Heal!”_

_At his command, a green light appeared over my head, immediately soothing the aches and pains in my body and sealing the wound that Riku had inflicted. I looked at him, and didn’t know what to say other than “… Thank you.”_

_Sora seemed just slightly relieved, nodding to me, “My magic still works okay. So I’ll back you up.”_

_I returned the nod, and we both pressed on, climbing the frozen platforms to the next level of floating rubble. But looking at Sora, I felt as though I should say something._

_So I asked the first thing that came to mind. “The one you’re here to rescue, is their name ‘Kairi?’”_

_“Y-yeah,” Sora said, his expression turning sorrowful again. Laying a hand over his chest, he explained, “Kairi, she’s… She means everything to me. But something happened to her the night our island disappeared. I’m not sure what, but I just hope it’s not what I think it is. And now Maleficent’s got her, somewhere in that castle.”_

_As I thought; our goals were the same. To defeat Maleficent and save our loved ones from her clutches. “But that other boy, that ‘Riku,’ he’s allied himself with the witch, even as he said he intended to save her…”_

_“Riku, he…” Sora opened his mouth as if to say something, but he found no words for his former friend, and instead he dropped his shoulders and shook his head in defeat. “... He was the one who kidnapped Alice and Jasmine, wasn’t he.”_

_There was nothing I could say that would comfort him about his friend’s actions. And it was all-too-certain that we would have to face Riku again on the path to saving our loved ones. He could not afford to hesitate due to some false hope that they could reconcile their differences_ _. “I looked into his eyes as I fought him, and saw no signs of regret or remorse. The witch is not forcing him to do her bidding.”_

_Sora looked as though he’d been struck, somehow looking even more crestfallen than before. “I don’t get it. I don’t really get anything anymore… I thought, I thought…” More tears fell, his voice cracked. He looked back down at the platform below, staring at a marking on the ground behind him: three white hearts connected by a circle. Hunching forward and sobbing into his arm, he barely managed to choke out, “I-I, I thought they were m-my, my friends…”_

_… I supposed allowing him this moment to cry would not mean the end of the world. Better that he let it out now instead of later. Something in my heart softened, and of its own accord, my paw rested itself on the boy’s shoulder. “… It was wrong of them to leave you like that,” I said, “no matter what their duties told them to do.”_

_The boy kept crying for awhile longer, eventually reducing to sniffles before he took a potion from his pocket and gulped it down. Patience was never my strong suit, but somehow I didn’t mind waiting for him to recover and prepare. And I pretended not to notice when he used my cape as a handkerchief._

_“Thanks, sorry,” Sora said, wiping away the last of his tears. “I’ll be alright. Where are we going?”_

_“We shall check the dungeons first.”_

_“You think Belle and Kairi are being kept in the same place?”_

_“I’m certain of it,” I said as I walked to the gateway at the edge of the highest platform. “Follow me, and stay close.”_

_“O-okay…” Sora trotted after me, still anxious._

_A platform suspended on a magical beam headed our way. The beam was a single straight line between these waterfalls and the castle; it would take us where we needed to go. But I had one last thing to say to Sora before we headed into further danger._

_“A weapon is only as strong as its wielder. The strength of your own heart has carried you this far. Let it carry you farther,” I said, and found myself half-smiling as I looked down on him. “And should you find it lacking still, I shall make up the difference.”_

_Sora could only stare at me in wonder. Perhaps my words reached him. He then blinked, and nodded._

_“Are you ready, then?”_

_“Yeah.”_

.

. .

. . .

The visit was a complete surprise, but a welcome one. Sora was overjoyed to see that the spell had been broken at long last, and to see everyone as a human for the first time. Myself, most of all.

“Hey, Prince!” He called out to me from just inside the threshold and across the entrance hall, with a jubilant wave and a face-splitting grin. “Looking good!”

And of course, I was happy to see him too. Hurrying my way over to him, I found his excitement to be infectious. Smiling brightly, even as I noted with some annoyance in my head that the height difference between us was far less than it used to be. But I still greeted him warmly. “So what brings you here, Sora?”

Sora scratched the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “Just… Wanted to say ‘hi.’ Things have been kinda crazy on my end, and they’re only gonna get crazier from here on. So I thought I’d go around and see how my friends are doing.” I noticed something in Sora’s eyes then, and suddenly got the sense that something had happened. But the look quickly vanished, and Sora was smiling again. “So imagine my surprise when I get here, and the whole castle and everyone in it all look totally different!”

I could never claim to know the full picture of what went on in Sora’s life. But whatever was happening in his world, I wanted him to know that he would always have a place here in ours. “Well, come on in, I’ll go get Belle, and I’m sure Mrs. Potts would love to make you some tea and cakes--”

But he waved off the offer, still cheerful as ever. “Oh, thanks, but I can’t stay too long. Got lots of people to check in on, you know how it is.”

“Are you sure…?”

“The cake sounds tempting, but I’d better not.” He paused, then went on, “Still, tell Belle and the others that I said ‘hi,’ alright, uh…?” Sora trailed off, silently asking my real name.

“Call me Adam,” I said with a nod. “And I certainly will.”

“‘Adam’…” Sora repeated my name, looking thoughtful, as if trying to decide if it were a better name than ‘Beast.’ But he nodded back, his expression then turning bittersweet and solemn. “I just wanted to say… That day we first met, back in Hollow Bastion… I don’t know what I would have done without your help. ”

And much to my surprise, Sora leaned in and hugged me tight. “Thanks, Adam.”

I watched Sora depart through the castle gates. He waved goodbye, betraying nothing of any doubt or hesitation he might have.

Whatever battles lay ahead for him, I knew it would be his heart that would win them.

**Author's Note:**

> I might do more like these if I can finish any more before I finally get 3.


End file.
